Tag: “workplace bully”

A federal appeals court panel has ruled that a supervisor did not violate the rights of a subordinate when he allegedly yelled at her in front of coworkers and violently threw a heavy notebook at her.

A panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the above conduct may be “unprofessional, uncivil and somewhat boorish” but it does not rise to the level of malevolence necessary to constitute a “hostile work environment” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act o f 1964.

Instead, the appellate panel compared the behavior to the “ordinary tribulations of the workplace,” which include petty insults, vindictive behavior and angry recriminations.

The decision, written by Justice Janet Rogers Brown, comes in a case that is also unusual because it involves the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent agency charged with addressing the grievances of federal workers who challenge discriminatory employment practices.

Patricia A. Brooks, who is an African-American, filed a race discrimination complaint alleging that she was a victim of a “hostile workplace environment” at the Office of Information Resources Management of the MSPB.

Brooks, who had worked at the MSPB since 1998, said her supervisor in 2005 insulted and demeaned her in front of coworkers when he yelled at her and threw a heavy notebook in her direction. The supervisor admitted slamming the book with his hand. Brooks said she was subsequently given poor performance ratings and became subject to selective enforcement of workplace rules.

After filing several equal employment opportunity complaints, Brooks filed a lawsuit alleging race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII. A federal judge dismissed Brooks’ complaint on a pre-trial motion for summary judgment, which means the judge ruled that no reasonable jury could find that the supervisor’s “conduct was so severe and pervasive as to alter the conditions of Brooks employment.” The three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit court upheld the dismissal of Brooks’ complaint.

Justice Brown writes in an April 15 decision that Brooks failed to show that she was subjected to “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult” that was “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [her] employment.” Justice Brown said the panel evaluated the “totality of the circumstances, including the frequently of the discriminatory conduct, its severity, its offensiveness and whether it interferes with an employee’s work performance.”

Even if the supervisor did violently throw a book at Brooks, the appellate panel said, the incident involved “unprofessional conduct” but was isolated and not sufficiently malevolent to constitute actionable abuse.

A retaliation complaint and other other claims were rejected on technical grounds.

More than half of women are bullied at work– often by members of their own sex, according to the largest survey of its kind ever conducted in the United Kingdom.

The gender equality group, Opportunity Now, and PwC, an international professional services group, commissioned a survey that included interviews with nearly 23,000 women and more than 2,000 men.

The group recently issued a report, “Project 28-40,” which urges employers to recognize that “harassment and bullying still occur, despite well-meaning policies. Call it out, deal with perpetuators, and make it simple and straightforward to report.”

Helena Morrissey, chairperson of Opportunity Now, said the key to improve the workplace for women should be training excellent managers; this will achieve “much more than yet another initiative or programme.”

Fifty-two percent of the women who responded to the survey said they experienced bullying at work within the past three years. The rates were highest for Black British / African /Caribbean women (69%), women with disabilities (71%), bisexual (61%) and lesbian and gay women (55%).

Without being specific, the report states that the biggest enemy facing women in the office or other workplaces may be other women. The researchers conducted ten focus groups to gain insight from the survey findings. “Women often experience bullying by female colleagues and line managers, a point echoed by focus groups participants who thought female bullies felt threatened by potential and ability and so exploited their position or authority to undermine,” said the report.

More than one in four of the women surveyed said they had experienced overbearing supervision or misuse of authority, or were deliberately overloaded with work and subject to constant criticism. One in six of the women experienced exclusion and victimization or were intentionally blocked from promotion or training opportunities.

The researchers conclude that the data shows the extent to which workplaces are “dysfunctional, inefficient and fundamentally unjust” to women.

An additional 12% of women reported experiencing sexual harassment within the past three years. One in eight said they had been sexually harassed – defined as “unwelcome comments of a sexual nature.” This includes unwanted physical contact or leering, asking for sexual favors, displaying offensive material such as posters, or sending offensive emails or texts of a sexual nature.

One wonders how an “independent” investigation could support a finding that Rutgers bullying basketball coach Mike Rice should remain on the university payroll?

Rice was forced to resign recently after a videotape was leaked to the public and showed him verbally and physically abusing players, while using homophobic slurs.

In his letter of resignation letter to Rutger’s President Robert L. Barchi, Athletic Director Tim Pernetti writes:

“As you know, my first instincts when I saw the videotape of Coach Rice’s behavior was to fire him immediately. However, Rutgers decided to follow a process involving university lawyers, human resources professionals and outside counsel. Following review of the independent investigative report, the consensus was that university policy would not justify dismissal.”

Corporate Counsel reports that the outside counsel, Attorney John Lacey, an attorney with Connell Foley of Roseland, NJ, issued a report in January stating that Rice could not be fired “for cause.” because there was no clear violation of his employment contract.

Lacey found that Rice was extremely demanding of his assistant coaches and players but that his behavior did not constitute “a ‘hostile work environment’ as that term is understood under Rutgers’ anti-discrimination policies.” Lacy said the “intensity” of Rice’s misconduct may have breached provisions in his contract against embarrassing the school but, as Rutgers officials conveniently point out, did not recommend termination.

The conclusion of the so-called independent investigation once again raises questions about these so-called independent investigations.

Increasingly, employers hire outside parties to “investigate” claims of workplace abuse. There often is an unstated expectation that the result of the investigation will affirm the employer’s goal of retaining the valued bully while insulating the employer from a potential lawsuit if the less valued target files a lawsuit. Too often the so-called independent investigators are attorneys who place themselves in the position of appearing to be for sale to the highest bidder.

The videotape is so shocking that it defies reason that any “independent” investigator could reasonably conclude that Rice’s behavior did not justify dismissal. In fact, some of the basketball players could have filed criminal assault complaints against Rice for physically manhandling them. Instead of dismissing Rice, Rutgers fined him $50,000 and suspended him for three games in December.

Just as in the Penn State scandal involving pedophile football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, Rutgers appears to have tolerated Rice’s bad behavior.

After the videotape was leaked, the dominos began to fall. Rice was fired. Assistant Coach Jeremy Martelli, Rutger’s General Counsel John Wolf, and Pernetti resigned. If I were Barchi, I wouldn’t make plans to redecorate the Presidential suite. Barchi’s claim that he never took the time to watch the videotape.until it was made public was met with obvious disdain at a press conference. Barchi blamed his bad decision on a “failure of process.”

Here is what needs to happen so that employers will take workplace bullying seriously – managers need to be held accountable.

These student athletes are essentially workers who are paid in the form of scholarship assistance by the university. Like any other worker, they know that a complaint can result in retaliation and their termination. These players relied upon their unofficial employer, Rutgers, to insure they were treated with dignity and respect and certainly not subjected to emotional and p physical abuse.

Most of the players just put up with Rice’s abuse. However, according to news reports, at least three players transferred from the program as a result of Rice’s abuse.

… But Still Needs Work

The heretofore anemic Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has received a dose of iron in its latest iteration in Massachusetts.

The version of the HWB submitted for consideration to the Massachusetts’ legislature omits the $25,000 cap on damages for targets who were not subjected to demotion or dismissal.

The Workplace Bullying Institute has pushed the HWB, written by Suffolk University Law Professor David C. Yamada, for more than a decade as part of state-by-state campaign to pass workplace anti-bullying legislation. More than 20 states have considered the HWB bill since 2002 but none as yet have adopted it. This year the bill is under consideration in about a half dozen states.

International scholars criticized the HWB in recent years because it was far less protective of targets of workplace bullying than laws and regulations of other industrialized countries.

This blog criticized the HWB’s requirements that targets prove malice and psychological damage (the latter was expressly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in federal anti-discrimination laws) and the unreasonably low cap on damages.

The revised bill still defines an abusive work environment as one where “an employer or one or more of its employees, acting with intent to cause pain or distress to an employee, subjects that employee to abusive conduct that causes physical harm, psychological harm, or both.”

How would one go about providing that a bully acted “with intent to cause pain or distress?” I have no idea. Suggestions?

In addition, workplace bullying almost always involves psychological harm. The bill’s requirement to prove psychological harm penalizes poor people and members of minority groups who tend to visit mental health professionals far less frequently for monetary or cultural reasons. In addition, this approach was explicitly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court as a requirement in race and sex discrimination cases involving a hostile workplace . (Harris v. Forklift System, 510 U.S. 17 (1993)).

A far better alternative to the problem of workplace bullying has been proposed by State Sen. Richard “Tick” Segerblom of Nevada.

Segerblom proposed extending the umbrella of discrimination laws to protect any worker who is exposed to a “hostile work environment.” Currently, only workers who have protected status under these laws by virtue of their race, sex, national original, etc. are protected.

If an employer or an employee are held to be in violation of the law, the Massachusetts bill provides that a court can order any relief that is “deemed appropriate, including, but not limited to: reinstatement, removal of the offending party from the complainant’s work environment, back pay, front pay, medical expenses, compensation for pain and suffering, compensation for emotional distress, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.”

According to the proposed bill, an abusive workplace environment is one where “an employer or one or more its employees, acting with intent to cause pain or distress to an employee, subjects that employee to abusive conduct that causes physical harm, psychological harm, or both.”

Abusive conduct involves “acts, omissions, or both, that a reasonable person would find abusive, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the conduct … .” This includes but is not limited to:

repeated verbal abuse such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets;

verbal, non-verbal, or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature;

or the sabotage or undermining of an employee’s work performance.

The proposed Massachusetts bill continues to distinguish between targets of bullying who have and have not been subjected to an adverse employment action (i.e., demotion or dismissal). The cap is gone but the latter still cannot recover from the employer damages for emotional distress or punitive damages unless the “actionable conduct was extreme and outrageous.” This limitation does not apply to “individually named defendants.” Thus, an employee who did not suffer an adverse employment action can only seek monetary damages from bully unless the actionable conduct was extreme and outrageous.

The bill also prohibits retaliation against targets who complain and anyone else who testifies, assists or participates in an investigation of workplace bullying.

The stated purpose of the Massachusetts bill is to provide a “legal incentive for employers” to prevent and respond to abusive treatment of employers at work.

Under the bill, it is an “aggravating factor” if the abusive conduct exploits an employee’s known psychological or physical illness or disability. In that case, a single act that is “especially severe and egregious” would be actionable.

Employers can escape liability by showing they exercised “reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any actionable behavior; and, the complainant employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of appropriate preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer.”

Also, employers cannot be penalized if the complaint is based on an adverse employment action made for poor performance, misconduct or economic necessity, a reasonable performance evaluation or “an employer’s reasonable investigation about potentially illegal or unethical activity.”

The bill would require an employee to file an action within a year of the last act that constitutes the alleged violation.

The study defines abusive supervision as a dysfunctional type of leadership that includes a sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors toward subordinates. The authors say abusive supervision generally is positively related to job frustration and co-worker abuse and negatively related to perceived organizational support.

“Although the effects of abusive supervision may not be physically harmful as other types of dysfunctional behavior (workplace violence or aggression), the actions are likely to leave longer lasting wounds. One reason for these long-lasting “scars” is that workplace violence and aggression are often stopped quickly, whereas abusive supervisory behaviors (such as being rude or giving the silent treatment) can continue for considerable times,” the researchers state.

Vicarious supervisory abuse occurs when an employee hears rumors of abusive behavior from coworkers, reads about such behaviors in an email, or actually witnesses the abuse of a coworker.

The report posits that workers who do not experience the abuse first hand may experience similar negative effects as the worker who is being abused. They may realize they could become targets for abuse by the same supervisor or they could be transferred to work under an abusive supervisor.

According to the study, employees expect to be treated with respect and consideration by their supervisors. In exchange, they work hard, have positive attitudes about their work and the workplace, and treat others with consideration. When abusive supervision occurs, employees are likely to feel less positively about their work (higher frustration and lower perceived organizational support) and react negatively toward coworkers who are a “safe target” upon which to vent aggression.

The researchers found similar negative impacts of first-hand supervisory abuse and second-hand vicarious supervisory abuse: greater job frustration, tendency to abuse other coworkers, and a lack of perceived organizational support.

The researchers queried a sample of 233 people who work in a wide range of occupations in the Southeast United States. Demographically, the sample was 46 percent men, 86 percent white, had an average age of 42.6 years, had worked in their job for seven years, had worked at their company for 10 years, and worked an average of 46 hours a week. Survey respondents were asked about supervisory abuse, vicarious supervisory abuse, job frustration, perceived organizational support, and coworker abuse.

“Our research suggests that vicarious abusive supervision is as likely as abusive supervision to negatively affect desired outcomes, with the worst outcomes resulting when both vicarious abusive supervision and abusive supervision are present,” the researchers said. “Top management needs further education regarding the potential impacts of vicarious abuse supervision on employees to prevent and/or mitigate the effects of such abuse.”

What is the difference between workplace bullying and illegal harassment?

The major difference is that no law at present prohibits workplace bullying – despite the fact that workplace bullying can severely impact an employee’s emotional and physical well-being. And most other industrialized countries have enacted laws or regulations that address workplace bullying.

However, bullying can become illegal when it creates a hostile or abusive work environment in violation of federal or state civil rights laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Generally, two factors must exist:

The harassing conduct must create a “hostile work environment.”

The harassing conduct must be directed toward a characteristic that is protected under federal and state civil rights laws. Title VII makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Therefore, workplace bullying may be illegal if it creates a hostile or abusive work environment and it is directed toward an individual who has protection under federal and state civil rights laws on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, etc.

What is a hostile work environment? The U.S. Supreme Court says a hostile work environment is a workplace that is permeated by discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive as to alter the conditions of a victim’s employment and to create an abusive working environment. Harris v. Forklift Sys., 510 U.S. 17 (U.S. 1993). The Court has repeatedly said that Title VII does not prohibit simple teasing or a merely offensive utterance.

NOTE: A target of illegal harassment does not have to suffer a nervous breakdown to gain the protection of Title VII. The U.S. Supreme Court says that as long as the environment would reasonablybe perceived and was perceived as hostile or abusive, there is no need for it also to be psychologically injurious. The court says psychological harm could be taken into account but is not required by the statute.

To sum up, there may be no substantive difference between the conduct that constitutes serious workplace bullying and the conduct that is acknowledged under the law to create an illegal hostile or abusive work environment. The harassing conduct can be identical, with the exact same devestating result.

The significant difference between serious workplace bullying and illegal harassment is a legal distinction pertaining to the characteristics of the target of the conduct.

Nevada State Sen. Richard Segerblom has proposed making Title VII “status blind” so that the law provides a remedy for all targets of a hostile or abusive workplace, whether or not they fall within a category that is now protected under the law.

As Shakespeare once observed: “If you prick us, do we not bleed.”

Individuals who are targets of workplace bullying may have other legal recourse, in addition to federal and state civil rights laws. All targets of workplace bullying are encouraged to consult an attorney who specializes in employment law for employees (not companies) to discuss the specific facts of their case and any potential legal remedies within their jurisdiction.

In a small office, an employee often has no where to go when she is mistreated by an employer.

The perils of this predicament are amply demonstrated in a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Iowa.

The all-male Court ruled that a dentist did not violate sex discrimination laws when he fired his long-time dental assistant because he (and his wife) was afraid he would have an affair with her.

The Court upheld a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in the case of Nelson v. Knight, No. 11–1857 (Dec. 21, 2012). This means the Court concluded there was absolutely no way a jury could decide against Dentist James H. Knight and hold in favor of his assistant, Melissa Nelson. Therefore, the case was dismissed before trial.

Knight said he fired Nelson, who had worked for him for ten years, after his wife insisted that Nelson had to go. He gave Nelson one month’s severance.

Knight admits that on several occasions he asked Nelson to put on a lab coat because her clothing was too tight, revealing and “distracting.” Nelson denied that her clothing was tight or in any way inappropriate and said she complained to Knight at one point that his criticism was unfair.

Nelson also recalls that Knight once texted her to ask how often she experienced an orgasm. Nelson did not answer the text. The Court found it significant that Nelson did not remember ever telling Knight not to text her or telling him that she was offended.

When Knight’s wife found out that her husband and Nelson had been texting each other, she confronted her husband and demanded that he terminate Nelson’s employment. The Court finds it significant that Knight and his wife consulted with the senior pastor of their church, who agreed with the decision.

After the firing, Knight told Nelson’s husband that nothing was going on but that he feared he would try to have an affair with her down the road if he did not fire her.

Nelson charged that Knight had discriminated against her on the basis of sex in violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act. She contended that she would not have been fired if she were male. Nelson did not raise the issue of sexual harassment.

The Court states in its decision that the question to be decided was “whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction.” In this case, the Court held that Knight’s decision was driven by individual feelings and emotions regarding a specific person. The Court concluded Knight’s decision was not gender-based or based on factors that might be a proxy for gender.

The Court states that an employer does not violate sex discrimination laws by ” treating an employee unfairly so long as the employer does not engage in discrimination based upon the employee’s protected status.”

The Court did concede that it might be possible to infer that gender was an issue if an employer repeatedly took adverse employment actions against persons of a particular gender because of alleged personal relationship issues.

So if Knight repeatedly fires future assistants because he thinks he might want to have an affair with them, or if Knights’ wife demands that he fire future assistants because she thinks he might want to have an affair with them, presumably a Court could find discrimination on the basis of sex.

Meanwhile, Melissa Nelson is unemployed, with one month’s severance.

This may not come as a surprise to some readers but, according to the Court’s web site, there are no women justices on the Iowa Supreme Court. The seven justices are Chief Justice Mark S. Cady, David S. Wiggins, Daryl L. Hecht, Brent R. Appel, Thomas D. Waterman, Edward Mansfield and Bruce Zager. Justice Mansfield wrote the opinion.

Kudos to Beverly Peterson at Our Bully Pulpit for noting this story from The Windsor Star newspaper, which highlights the contrast between the United States and Canadian legal systems with respect to workplace bullying.

Targets in the United States have little legal recourse in the legal system. There is no law against workplace bullying. If they somehow make it to court – usually alleging some form of discrimination – it is probable that a federal judge will dismiss their case before it ever reaches a jury. It’s a different story in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which has a law and where a target of bullying recently won a $1.4 million award after she was bullied out of her job at Walmart.

The Canadian jury of three men and three women, who decided that Boucher was constructively dismissed — in other words, forced out through abusive treatment — awarded her: from Walmart, $200,000 for intentional infliction of mental suffering, $1 million for punitive damages, and $10,000 for assault; and from her former supervisor, Jason Pinnock, $100,000 for intentional infliction of mental suffering, and $150,000 for punitive damages. .

Here’s an excerpt from an article by a University of Windsor professor who analyzes the significance of the verdict:

The $1.46-million award a former Walmart assistant manager won this week in Windsor for mistreatment by a boss could make workplaces more civil across Canada, says an expert on workplace bullying.

The Windsor ruling — the highest such award in Canadian history — for the first time has turned mass media attention to bullying at work, instead of simply, say, bullying at school.

“This is the big case and it’s going to change the way Canadians see workplace bullying, absolutely,” said Jacqueline Power, a University of Windsor assistant professor of business management who specializes in workplace bullying. “It’s similar to what sexual harassment was 20 years ago. People just had to put up with sexual harassment in the workplace. Then they started having large legal judgments and human resources departments began to take it seriously.”

Power said Ontario’s Bill 168, introduced in 2009 to protect workers from violence and harassment on the job, set the stage. But she said enforcement didn’t follow as promised, so it fell to court cases to lay out the law — starting with Meredith Boucher.

Last month Boucher launched a lawsuit against Walmart, where she had worked for 10 years, after she felt forced to leave the company in November 2009. A jury agreed the 42-year-old Chatham woman suffered daily abuse from Jason Pinnock, 32, then the manager of the east Windsor Walmart where she worked, who would berate her with profane and insulting language over six months, often in front of others.

She filed a suit alleging intentional infliction of mental suffering, sexual harassment and discrimination, and assault by an assistant manager who punched her in the arm two days in a row and was subsequently fired.

The jury of three men and three women gave her nothing for sexual harassment and discrimination, but handed her a whopping award for her other claims: $1.21 million against Walmart and $250,000 against Pinnock.

Power said the judgment sets another precedent beyond being the richest such award in Canada. She said it also marks the first time someone has successfully won for general bullying by a boss, without the victim having to fall into a special category of female, visible minority, gay or anything else.

“This is the first time that we have recognized that you can be a white male and still be treated badly at work,” she said, noting the irony that it took a woman to fight for such protection for all. “In the United States, they have decided explicitly that they will not enforce civility. But in Canada, we now look after white men, as well.

“So it’s an extremely brave thing for this person to bring it to court. And because she was so brave, she has changed the legal environment for all employees.”…

Boucher’s lawsuit is actually only the first of four against Walmart Canada, all by female assistant managers seeking at least $500,000 in damages, all from the same store, all alleging the same thing in 2009 and 2010: abusive treatment by a manager….

“We are disappointed with the decision and surprised by the highly exceptional damages that have been awarded,” said Andrew Pelletier, vice-president of corporate affairs and sustainability for Walmart Canada. “We’re reviewing the decision in detail now and we will consider all options, including the possibility of an appeal.”

Pelletier said he is surprised not just by the size of the judgment but by the allegations.

A number of Walmart employees have launched suits against the company in the United States, however, where some workers have recently threatened to strike, despite the fact they are not unionized….

The woman at the centre of the case, meanwhile, says only one person treated her abusively but that it affected her deeply. Court heard that Boucher spoke to senior Walmart managers about the abuse several times. Not only was nothing done about it, she was told she would be held accountable for her accusations.

She became physically ill, lost weight, sought counselling, and was treated for stress. And then she took it to court, risking having to pay Walmart’s substantial court costs if she lost.

A new study by CareerBuilder finds that workplace bullying is on the rise, with 35 percent of workers reporting they have felt bullied on the job, up from 27 percent last year.

Sixteen percent of these workers reported they suffered health-related problems as a result of bullying and 17 percent decided to quit their jobs to escape the situation.

The study found the majority of incidents go unreported. Twenty-seven percent of targets said they reported the bullying to their Human Resources department. Of these workers, 43 percent reported that action was taken while 57 percent said nothing was done.

The scientific survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive from May 14 to June 4, 2012 and included more than 3,800 workers nationwide.

Who Are the Bullies?

Of workers who felt bullied, 48 percent pointed to incidents with their bosses and 26 percent to someone higher up in the company. Forty-five percent said the bullies were coworkers while 31 percent were picked on by customers.

More than half (54 percent) of those bullied said they were bullied by someone older than they were, while 29 percent said the bully was younger.

Weapons of a Workplace Bully

The most common way workers reported being bullied was getting blamed for mistakes they didn’t make followed by not being acknowledged and the use of double standards. The full list includes:

Falsely accused of mistakes – 42 percent

Ignored – 39 percent

Used different standards/policies toward me than other workers – 36 percent

Belittling comments were made about my work during meetings – 24 percent

Gossiped about – 26 percent

Someone stole credit for my work – 19 percent

Purposely excluded from projects or meetings – 18 percent

Picked on for personal attributes – 15 percent

Standing Up to the Bully

About half (49 percent) of victims reported confronting the bully themselves, while 51 percent did not. Of those who confronted the bully, half (50 percent) said the bullying stopped while 11 percent said it got worse, and 38 percent said the bullying didn’t change at all.

The company offers the following tips for workers who are feeling bullied:

Keep record of all incidents of bullying, documenting places, times, what happened and who was present.

Consider talking to the bully, providing examples of how you felt treated unfairly. Chances are the bully may not be aware that he/she is making you feel this way. (Personally, I disagree. Most bullies know exactly what they are doing. A small percentage are actually psychopaths ,completley lacking in empathy. Use your judgment when confronting a bully – it may work but it also could escalate the problem or the bully could lay low until he/she sees the opportunity to finish the job.)

Always focus on resolution. When sharing examples with the bully or a company authority, center the discussions around how to make the working situation better or how things could be handled differently.

Surveys consistently show that between a quarter and a third of workers have felt bullied on the job. Furthermore, there is overwhelming research that workplace bullying can lead to potentially severe mental and physical health problems. Yet, efforts to address the problem in the United States over the past decade have proved fruitless up to now. Meanwhile, many other industrialized countries have adopted regulations or laws to address workplace bullying which place the responsibility upon the employer to insure a safe bully-free workplace for employees.

Readers can sign a petition calling up the Secretary of Labor to take action to address the epidemic of workplace bullying by going here.

CareerBuilder’s on-line site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 24 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 49 million resumes.

A recent study by researchers at New University of British Columbia (UBC) shows that co-workers who witness bullying experience and may develop a stronger urge to quit than the actual direct targets of bullying.

According to the study: “Our results show that merely working in a work unit with a considerable amount of bullying is linked to higher employee turnover intentions.”

Sandra Robinson, a professor at the Sauder School of Business at UBC and co-author of the study, said society tends to assume that targets of bullying “bear the full brunt. However, our findings show that people across an organization experience a moral indignation when others are bullied that can make them want to leave in protest.”

The study is published in the current edition of the journal Human Relations.

The researchers found that employees witnessing co-workers being bullied, or merely talking to them about their experiences, tend to take the targets’ perspective. As a result, they experience cognitive or emotional empathy, which includes imagining how another feels or actually sharing in another’s feelings. These empathetic responses contribute to the understanding that a significant moral violation has occurred and recognition that the victim does not deserve mistreatment. As a result of this moral uneasiness, bullying at large within a work unit will increase employee intentions to quit their work group

Data used for the study were collected through two surveys of a sample of 357 nurses in 41 units of a large Canadian health authority. The surveys used a series of questions to assess the level of bullying in each nursing unit and then asked participants to rate their positive or negative reactions toward statements like, “If I had a chance, I would change to some other organization.”

Findings show that all respondents who experience bullying, either directly or indirectly, reported a greater desire to quit their jobs than those who did not. However, the results also indicate that people who experienced it as bystanders in their units or with less frequency reported wanting to quit in even greater numbers.

Prof. Robinson said that prior research shows that intentions to quit are directly correlated with employees leaving their jobs. However, she warns that even if employees stay in their roles, an organization’s productivity can suffer severely if staff members have an unrealized desire to leave.

“Managers need to be aware that the behaviour is pervasive and it can have a mushrooming effect that goes well beyond the victims,” says Robinson. “Ultimately bullies can hurt the bottom line and need to be dealt with quickly and publicly so that justice is restored to the workplace.”